Gyl Rosenblum vividly remembers meeting Harvey Milk as a
teenager in the mid-1970s when she lived on Castro Street in the heart of the
city's then burgeoning gayborhood. Living mere doors down from Milk's Castro
Camera store, Rosenblum would frequent the business.

Milk went on to become the first out gay man elected to
political office in a major U.S. city when he won a seat on the Board of
Supervisors in 1977. A year later Milk, along with then-Mayor George Moscone,
was assassinated in his City Hall office on November 27, 1978 by former board
colleague Dan White.

The night of their deaths Rosenblum joined the crowd in
front of City Hall mourning the slain leaders. Now living across the bay in El
Cerrito, Rosenblum returned to the city last week to once again remember her
former neighbor.

"It felt like it was time to commemorate it," said
the 50-year-old Rosenblum, who was joined by her partner of three years, Ann
Williams.

Williams, 59, was an out lesbian living in Oakland at the
time. Pregnant and near her due date, she was unable to attend the candlelight
vigil that night in 1978.

"It was just stunning. It was just an awful thing, to
have a powerful gay leader just eliminated so quickly," said Williams.
"I remember seeing him walking by once. You could see he could have gone
far. He really did have charisma."

The couple joined close to 1,000 people who had gathered in
front of City Hall and then marched to the location of Milk's old camera shop
on Castro Street Friday, November 28 to mark the 30th year since the
assassinations. [The annual ceremony had been pushed back a day due to the
actual anniversary falling on Thanksgiving this year.]

The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, whose first public
performance was the night of the deaths, returned to the steps of City Hall to
sing once again. Friends, relatives, and colleagues of both Milk and Moscone
eulogized the men many credit with opening the doors of the city's political
power to gays and people of color.

"Tonight is very bittersweet for many. Every time we
gather our hearts are heavy with what happened," said recently sworn-in
state Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a friend of Milk's who followed him into
politics. "Harvey Milk would be very bemused today to see where history has
placed not only him, but us, the community and his legacy."

He said Milk's true acumen was his ability to form
coalitions among disparate groups of people and his fearlessness when he moved
to San Francisco in living life as an openly gay man.

"I don't think we will ever forget. You can kill the
messengers but not the message," said Ammiano.

Jonathan Moscone, the openly gay son of Moscone, attended
the memorial with his mother, Gina. He said although his father's tenure as
mayor was short, he left a lasting impression on the city.

"What George saw in this city, he saw great
possibilities. In a minute's time he was an agent of change," said
Jonathan Moscone. "The deep hole in our hearts has never been refilled due
to George's death. He was this city's, if not one of this country's, greatest
man."

Former Mayor Willie Brown, who was a close friend and former
classmate of Moscone's, said despite their deaths, the progressive changes
Moscone and Milk pushed through last to this day.

"This city has never gone back to what it was after
those two were elected," said Brown. "Those two individuals literally
shaped the nature of politics and public policy in this city. ... This city,
state and nation would be a far more interesting place if Harvey and George had
lived."

Stuart Milk, the openly gay nephew of Harvey Milk, said the
anniversary of his uncle's and Moscone's deaths is "always very
emotio

nal" for the two families. But he said he is comforted by the fact
"they both left this life together."

His mother Audrey Milk, Harvey's sister-in-law, returned to
San Francisco this year for the first time since 1978 when she came out for the
funerals. She did not attend the annual march, but she did share with her son
for the first time a letter Harvey had written to his brother's family shortly
before he was killed.

In it he professes his desire to leave behind for the next
generations a world not filled with hate but love, said Stuart Milk.

"Harvey's message was of love and courage. My family
got tremendous amounts of hate mail when Harvey was killed. My parents changed
their phone number, as well as me at college," he said. "But the hate
does not live on. The world is so much further along today than it was 30 years
ago."

Among the crowd in the Civic Center was Dan Jinks, a
producer of the new biopic Milk about
the life of the gay rights leader that had opened in select cities just two
nights before. In the area to celebrate the holiday with his sister, who lives
in Lafayette, Jinks said he found the tribute to Milk and Moscone to be moving.

"It's just something we were constantly reminded of
making the movie. We were making a movie of a person who had made a difference
and died tragically," said the openly gay Jinks. "I wanted to be here
for it for I continue to be inspired by Harvey Milk on a daily basis."

Diamond Heights resident Patrick Cosson, 46, said he came to
the march in order to keep Milk's memory and legacy alive.

"I am appalled by the young generation not knowing who
Harvey is," said the openly gay Cosson. "I just can't assume that
they know who Harvey was and what he stood for."

At a time when a person could lose their job solely for
being gay, Milk pushed LGBT people to come out of the closet and demand equal
rights. Cosson said Milk was instrumental to his accepting his own sexual
orientation.

"He was very important to my coming out process,"
said Cosson, who was born in France but moved to America and came out while
living in Cincinnati in 1980.

Openly gay San Francisco Treasurer Jose Cisneros told the
crowd assembled outside Milk's old camera store that his political success can
be traced back to Milk's historic victory.

"I am so proud to be standing on the shoulders of
incredible heroes who have gone before us," said Cisneros.

Openly gay Supervisor Bevan Dufty said if anything can be
learned from Milk's legacy, it is that the LGBT community cannot be afraid to
show itself, especially in the fight for marriage equality. He said that
message comes through loud and clear in the film when it depicts Milk's successful
campaign to defeat Prop 6, an anti-gay measure that would have barred gay
people from teaching in public schools.

"You see in the movie how Harvey had to fight the No on
6 campaign to show who we are. Going forward we have to have any campaign
speaking to the diverse nature of California," said Dufty, alluding to
complaints that the No on Prop 8 campaign this year to defeat an anti-gay
marriage measure did not showcase LGBT couples. "I hope everybody gets
that lesson from the movie. We are who we are and people need to know us to
accept us. It is something I take everyday from Harvey."